What it is:
Movies in the dark. The TV will be used for watching movies in a controlled environment, directly in front, in a home theater way. Mostly only high quality content, like Blu-rays, UHD Blu-rays, streaming and a little bit of HDR.

What it is:
TV Shows in a bright living room. The TV will be used in to watch TV shows, in a bright room during the day, from multiple viewing positions at different angles. The content watched has an average quality: cable, streaming, SD channels, etc.

What it is:
Video games. The TV will be used to play video games, directly in front, in a controlled light environment. Usually fast games, like online FPS, where motion blur and input lag is important.

What it is:
HDR Gaming. The TV will be used to play HDR video games using consoles that support it or on current generation gaming PCs. Xbox One S, PS4 Pro, GTX 10 series and AMD RX series graphics cards.

This TV is very good for movies. The blacks are deep and quite uniform, and 24 fps movies don’t have judder, which is great.

This TV also has decent local dimming. There’s some blooming on brighter objects onscreen, which isn’t ideal, but the feature works better on this model than it does on the otherwise similar Vizio M-series.

8.1Contrast

What it is:
Brightness difference between white and black. This is the main component of picture quality.

With the local dimming feature off, the contrast ratio is good. Surprisingly, the local dimming did change our black level measurement on our checkboard pattern (it didn't on the E or M Series). We measured a black of 0.023 cd/m2 instead of 0.030 cd/m2. Of course, with that feature, the black level is even lower on larger black areas. The 55" has a native contrast ratio a lot lower than the other sizes, around 1,000:1.

Good value:
Full-array/direct lighting is better for local dimming. As for the uniformity of the screen, it depends on the implementation. Some edge-lit TVs have more uniform blacks than some full-array TVs.

The backlight is a bit slow to dim when transitioning from light to dark, so there is a trail of blooming that follows the dot around the screen in our test. This video was filmed under 'Calibrated Dark' preset. Under 'Calibrated', it is not as aggressive, except for the top and bottom letterboxes.

What it is:
The maximum luminosity, even if only maintained for a short time, of a white square covering 2% of the screen, with the TV set to be as bright as possible. Measured with local dimming and over SDR signal.

When it matters:
Bright highlights, present on screen for a short time; especially for SDR content.

What it is:
The maximum luminosity, even if only maintained for a short time, of a white square covering 50% of the screen, with the TV set to be as bright as possible. Measured with local dimming and over SDR signal.

The 60" Vizio P we reviewed lost picture quality pretty quickly when viewed at an angle. It’s not a problem if you sit directly in front of it, but this is not an ideal TV for even relatively minor deviations from a centered position. The 55” version has an IPS panel, and therefore does not have that same problem.

Update 01/06/2017: We have changed the methodology of testing. Since this is an old TV which we don't have anymore, we extrapolated the results from 2016 TVs.

The Vizio P Series reflects slightly more than average. It is not significant, so do not worry about a few overhead lights.It gets very bright, and can handle itself well in a bright room. It would do fine even if it was surrounded by windows or other sources of bright light.

This TV has a good deal of overshoot on some transitions, which means there could be a fairly lengthy trail on some movement. This trail will be visible regardless of whether 'Smooth Motion Effect' or 'Clear Action' are enabled.

Using the ‘Game Low Latency’ feature drops input lag to a very low 18.7 msecs, but only on HDMI 5. On HDMI 1-4, the lowest it gets is 45.5 msecs. Without GLL, HDMI 5 has an input lag of 85.5 msecs (84.3 with interpolation), and HDMI 1-4 has one of 103.9 (102.9 with interpolation).

Smart Features

Score components:
Subjectively assigned

Score distribution:

Smart OS
:
Basic

The app selection is limited, and the full smart menu can take a while to navigate. The dedicated app buttons (Netflix, Amazon Instant, iHeart Radio) make it quick and easy to open those three apps, though.

It comes with a pretty standard remote. It has a QWERTY keyboard on the back, which makes entering text much faster.

10Ads

What it is:
Whether or not ads can be found on the TV's smart platform.

The Vizio P Series is a great TV. If you want a 4k TV, the Vizio P Series is a great budget option. If you don't care about 4k, the choice isn't as clear. Even though it is better than the E Series and M Series, it costs almost twice as much, so the price to quality ratio isn't as good. But if you don't mind the price difference, go for the Vizio P Series.